Need Reliable IT Support? Celebrating a second chance at life

But just 10 days after going on the active transplant list, Lisa was told a donor had been found. She was flown to Auckland Hospital on Life Flight to get ready for surgery.

Her feelings on the flight up, were all over the place, she says.

“On the plane up there [to Auckland Hospital] all I could think of was that someone was going through the most horrific heartbreak.”

New Zealand’s official donor agency Organ Donation New Zealand says organ donation is only possible when a person is on a ventilator in an intensive care unit (ICU), usually with severe brain damage. Less than 1 per cent of all deaths happen this way.

“I went to the cardio thoracic ward and my transplant co-ordinator was there. The smile on her face when she saw me, said it all, she was so happy.

“I don’t know anything about my donor, but I do think of them every day.”

Going into surgery on June 13, 2013, Lisa’s 12-hour transplant was officially completed at 1.28pm on June 14. She says while the initial post operative pain was hard to deal with, she recovered quickly and within days even managed to walk.

“I had a huge smile on my face. I was very, very lucky as my recovery went 100 per cent smoothly.

There were no complications and so many people have complications.

“First, I had to learn to sit up again and then they got me to a chair and then I managed to walk to the toilet. It was a huge milestone.

“Everything felt so amazing. I remember thinking wow, so this is what’s it’s like to really live.” For Lisa, the donor and their family live alongside her every day as she embraces her second chance at life. It is a responsibility she never forgets, she says.

“The survivor guilt was intense, but I swear I could feel the energy and love coming from the

South Island.”

The survival rate for lung transplant is 60% at five years and Lisa is grateful to be marking ten years.

She volunteers her time to talk to other transplant patients and hospital staff both at Wairau and Nelson Hospitals.

Patients are relieved to see a healthy younger woman who is doing so well, she says.

“I was prepared for my new life,” Lisa says.

“It gave me something to focus on. I felt so peaceful, one hundred per cent peaceful. There was no doubt that I wouldn’t wake up.”

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